Executions Are Under Way in Iran For Adultery and Other Violations

By NAZILA FATHI

Published: July 11, 2007

The Iranian government confirmed Tuesday that a man was executed by stoning last week for committing adultery, and said that 20 more men would be executed in the coming days on morality violations.

A judiciary spokesman, Alireza Jamshidi, told reporters on Tuesday that a death sentence by stoning had been carried out last week near the city of Takestan, west of Tehran, despite an order by the chief of the judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Shahroudi, not to permit such executions.

''The verdict was final, and so it was carried out for the man but not for the woman,'' the ISNA news agency quoted Mr. Jamshidi as saying.

He said the 20 additional executions were for such things as ''rape, insulting religious sanctities and laws, and homosexuality.'' Most executions in Iran are hangings, often in public and at the scenes of the alleged crimes.

The police arrested about 1,000 people in May during a so-called morality crackdown. Mr. Jamshidi said 15 more men were being tried on similar charges and could receive death sentences.

The daily newspaper Etemad Melli reported Monday that Jaffar Kiani, 47, who had been convicted of adultery, was executed by stoning on Thursday in the cemetery of a small village near Takestan. ''Villagers said the sentence was carried out by the local judge and authorities,'' the newspaper reported.

Mr. Kiani and his partner, Mokarameh Ebrahimi, 43, who has two children, were scheduled to die on June 21, but the execution was put off by Ayatollah Shahroudi.

Correction: July 18, 2007, Wednesday
An article last Wednesday about the planned executions of 20 men in Iran for morality crimes incorrectly translated part of a statement by a judiciary spokesman about the kinds of offenses the men had been convicted of committing. The spokesman, Alireza Jamshidi, said they included ''rape, insulting religious sanctities and laws, and sodomy'' -- not ''and homosexuality.''